"Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty – a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show." ---Bertrand Russell (1907) Rob Gluck

"I have come to believe, though very reluctantly, that it [mathematics] consists of tautologies. I fear that, to a mind of sufficient intellectual power, the whole of mathematics would appear trivial, as trivial as the statement that a four-legged animal is an animal." ---Bertrand Russell (1957)

Friday, June 21, 2013

Keith Devlin… as you may not have heard him before….

Math-Frolic Interview #15 (...notthe usual fare)

"As a naturalized American, I have an immigrant's reverence for those
words of our National Anthem, 'Land of the free, home of the brave.' For
many of my fellow citizens born here, I fear these are just words they
learned to recite in elementary school. For the fact that 56% of
Americans declare that they would give away fundamental freedoms to
reduce the risk of terrorist attack indicates that we may become the 'land of the enslaved, home of the scared.' " -- Dr. Keith Devlin in Huffington Post

I'm not sure there's anyone more generous with their time and energy than Keith Devlin….Since Edward Snowden's NSA revelations (and subsequent controversy), I noticed Dr. Devlin expressing himself on the topic (as much as one can in 140 characters!) on Twitter (@ProfKeithDevlin) more than any other mathematician/scientist I follow. The passion of his opinions intrigued me and I asked if he'd do another Math-Frolic interview, but this time just on his views about this NSA controversy -- NO MATH (my prior math interview with Keith is HERE) -- I thought he deserved more time or space than available on Twitter or even Huffington Post, where he has a piece. So read up, Keith doesn't much mince his opinions! ***********************************

1)The recent NSA
revelations have generated a broad range of opinion across the spectrum
(from outrage, to 'ho-hum, nothing new here'). Of the many math/science
persons I follow on Twitter you've been among the most harshly
outspoken. Can you explain a little more deeply where that sense of
betrayal stems from… as a 'naturalized' citizen do you perhaps
appreciate American democratic ideals even more than a lifelong
born-citizen who just takes them for granted… and how much does your
British background (another country with a strong democratic history)
come into play? Or, is it mostly just a straightforward
legal/Constitutional issue for you, unrelated to background?

Appreciating
the iconic ideals of US Democracy as enshrined in the Constitution is
part of my outrage at the way the US (the nation, not just the
government) has allowed those ideals to slide. I certainly am under no
illusions as to the many deficiencies in the US, for instance, its
third-world levels of poverty and infant mortality and its medieval
prison system. But those words of the Founding Fathers are one of
Humanity's greatest achievements. It's surely worth remembering that the
US owes its existence to the fact that those Founding Fathers were
traitors. So far, everything I have seen of Edward Snowden puts him into
the same camp as the Nation's founders. Certainly, his public
statements and actions so far qualify him as a greater American than the
current President who complicitly -- and secretly -- allowed the slide
away from the founding ideals to continue.

The
personal twist in my case is that, twice in my life, I've found myself
as the "suspected outcast". I'll describe the first. As a young
assistant professor in Germany in the 1970s, when Germany was struggling
with massive student unrest and genuine internal terrorism
(Bader-Meinhoff, etc.), security forces surveillance of some of my
students brought me into their radar, and for a few weeks I was followed
around and my mail was regularly intercepted. The fact that I was very
aware of this indicated that the intention was probably to scare me as
much as to find any incriminating evidence against me, and my wife and I
actually regarded the whole affair with amusement. I was clearly low
level, peripheral fish in their surveillance sweep, and after a few
weeks they were (as far as I know) out of my life. Still, it made me
realize how easy it is for a totally innocent individual to find him or
herself on a government security list, simply by virtue of the people
they interact with. (To this day I have no idea if any of my students
were active in the political unrest of the time, or indeed if any
engaged in illegal activities.)

The second time
was in the UK, and contributed to my leaving my homeland for the US,
but the one example I have described should be enough to indicate why I
simply don't buy the frequently touted idea that "If you have done
nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear." In the age of big data, just
as we can easily find ourselves with a wrecked credit rating that can
take years to sort out, so too we can find ourselves on a government
"person of suspicion" list. In my case, I had the psychological strength
to shrug it off -- albeit I did emigrate from the UK to the USA. Had I a
different psychology, the ending could have been tragically different,
as it was for Aaron Swartz, who was unable to sustain the inhuman
persecution by US attorney Carmen Ortiz and Massachusetts assistant US attorney Stephen Heymann, who clearly viewed him as a mere pawn to advance their careers.

2)
Related to the above, you actually worked for the NSA at one time in
your life (contractor???). I suspect you can't say a lot about that
work, but can you say, in a more general way, if that specific
experience with NSA, contributes to your strong feelings? And are there
any details from your own NSA experience you can tell us about which are
pertinent to this ongoing story?

In
the early post-9/11 era, I did work on a large, non-classified (albeit
not publicized) project to improve the quality of the actionable
intelligence that could be obtained from massive amounts of data. I was
glad to play my small role, though when that project came to an end, I
held the same view I did at the start: absent a significant HUMINT lead
(human intelligence), trawling through massive amounts of data is a
waste of time. There is no chance you will be able to prevent a
terrorist attack. I know that a number of intelligence leaders have made
statements of late that claim otherwise, but all I can say is that
after working hard on the problem for five years, I reached a very
different conclusion. To be sure, I do not know the computing
capabilities the NSA has, but based on my understanding of the problem,
without a good HUMINT lead, it won't be enough. Mathematically, the
problem is known as combinatorial explosion. (With a HUMINT lead, on the
other hand, you don't need to trawl the data, you just have to search
for confirming evidence, starting from that one lead.)

3)Author Kurt Eichenwald wrote a book a few years ago, "500 Days,"
apparently divulging info similar to what Ed Snowden has revealed. Have
you by any chance read this volume? He claims on Twitter (as do others)
that there is nothing new in the current revelations, and that in fact
some of the details, as covered by the press, are simply wrong or
misleading. To those who would say, there's no real news here, and
moreover, private companies (Google, Facebook etc.) snoop on individual
lives FAR MORE than the Gov't., what would you say?

I've
written elsewhere (Huffington Post) that the Snowden revelations were
akin to Lance Armstrong's appearance on Oprah. In both cases, we learned
nothing we did not already strongly suspect. But making it public
knowledge, as opposed to widely believed suspicion, changes the debate.
In the Armstrong case, within days, he had lost all his multi-million
dollar sponsorship deals. After Snowden, the intelligence chefs could
not respond to questions by saying there was no wrong doing, they had to
provide actual details, in at least one case revealing a clear-cut case
of perjury before Congress. Maybe heads will roll -- they should -- but
maybe not. (In fairness to those involved, the nature of intelligence
does put people in a difficult position with regard to being truthful.
Few of us have the courage of Edward Snowden.) In any event, even
ordinary citizens had a pretty good idea of what the NSA was doing, so
for sure our enemies did. Statements that the Snowden revelations
damaged national security are clearly absurd. The security lies in the
data, not the knowledge that is exists. The only damage from the Snowden
revelations is the embarrassment of people in power. (It surely cannot
be international relations, except on the surface, since all the other
countries harbored the same suspicions as we all did, and for sure the
many countries with the technological capabilities knew for sure what we
were up to!)

4)
Personally, while the massive net for "metadata" concerns me, what
troubles me even more (and doesn't get much coverage) is the potential
for NSA individuals to target specific politicians/leaders for scrutiny
and use that info for strictly partisan purposes… possessing knowledge
about the personal lives of political opponents is an even greater
danger to democracy than knowledge of the general citizenry. Any
thoughts?

This is the real
worry. Right now, we have President Obama saying "Trust me, this immense
security apparatus is being used for your safety." As it happens, I am
inclined to give him that trust, though in so doing I am making a leap
based on no first-hand knowledge. But that's not the point. Who knows
who will hold the reins in the future? It was not long ago that J Edgar
Hoover was in charge of the FBI. We've had despots in positions of power
before, it can happen again. When I was living and working in West
Germany, I traveled occasionally to East Berlin to consult with
university colleagues, and learned enough about the STASI to never want
to live in a state with such a powerful and intrusive security
apparatus.

5)Some people view Snowden (thus far) as a highly-intelligent, sincere,
courageous, deeply-patriotic individual, and others label him
narcissistic, self-aggrandizing, delusional (some have even said, why
can't he be ALL of the above!). Care to say, how you would characterize
him?

I already did. I think
history will portray him as a twenty-first century "Founding Father",
who initiated a return to the principles by which the country was
founded. Assuming, that is, that we do indeed step back from the abyss.
The current attempts to discredit him are as predictable as they are
transparent. His personal character actually makes little difference. He
did the US a great service (that's the part history will remember) by
performing a heroic act, clearly at high risk to himself. Exactly the
same can be said of the Founding Fathers. Acts can endure, personalities
are replaced by stories.

6)One of the interesting major disagreements is between those who say
that the sort of massive "dragnet" surveillance that is going on is
outright illegal and not authorized by Patriot Act measures, versus
those who say there is NO "surveillance" but only the collection of
large-scale metadata (which does not constitute surveillance), and only
when a 'pattern' of interest is found in the data can the Gov't. then
seek a court order to do further actual surveillance. I know you are
interested in the uses of language and meaning, and clearly that is what
we have here… Any comments?

It is clearly illegal, being against the Constitution. It's also immoral. Period.

7)Do you feel very disillusioned (as some do) by the Obama presidency
over the various issues of transparency/secrecy that have arisen, or
are your issues more with the intelligence community than with the White
House?

We live in a democratic republic. The
intelligence community do their job, and implicit in that is to collect
as much information as they can. The elected government are the ones
setting the limits and calling the shots. If there has been a breakdown
in that line of command, it is the government that has the
responsibility to put things right. If ever we were at a juncture where a
president should offer real leadership, now is that time. I understand
Obama would like to go down in history as another Lincoln. Now is his
chance. I wonder if he has it in him.

8) Supposedly Glenn Greenwald/Guardian have several more disclosures to
make from the information Snowden provided. Care to make any predictions
(and I know you think that predictions, especially about the future,
are difficult ;-) about what may happen over the course of say the next
year? …Will Snowden be extradited and prosecuted here in the U.S.? Will
the Patriot Act be revisited and revised by Congress? Will the stand politicians' take on this affair (with or against Snowden/NSA) have a major effect
on the 2014 mid-term elections?….

Since I don't know what information
Snowden has, I don't see how anyone can make predictions. Whatever he
has clearly already exists in multiple copies, held by different people,
so it will likely eventually come out. So in practical terms, the best
option for the US is to simply leave Snowden alone in Hong Kong. Public
interest being as it is, "the Snowden story" will soon go away -- though
I hope that real reforms result. Trying to have him extradited to the
US, in contrast, will not only keep the story on the front pages for
months and more likely years, but if the attempt succeeds, we will have a
martyr on our hands. And martyrs are dangerous. Do we want to turn
Snowden into another Nelson Mandella? How do we respond if, for
instance, an imprisoned Edward Snowden is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize?
(Those Scandinavians have a strong sense of social justice and are not
easily pressured, so that could very well happen!) Better not to go that
route. There is a slew of downsides, but the only "upside" is revenge,
and there is no way the US could come out with dignity and respect if we
throw our immense power going after one of our own citizens so it would
prove to be a hollow upside.

9) And one last crystal ball inquiry… many have contended for a long while
now that in the future there simply will be NO privacy… some think
current young generations have ALREADY forfeited any significant concern
over privacy. I truly wonder if, a century from now, "privacy" won't be
just a quaint little term in historical footnotes. You and I might not
wish to live in that world, but is not the near-complete loss of privacy
inevitably coming? :-(

I think that here in the US we have a
choice. In 1789, a bunch of traitors to the ruling authority formulated
the First and Fourth Amendments as they set the new nation on its
course. Like him or hate him, Edward Snowden has put the questions of
public information and personal privacy on the table once again. As a
result, we have an opportunity to correct our course. Because of the
Founding Fathers, we are currently able to debate this issue freely and
openly. If we don't live up to those two-hundred-years ideals now, that
great episode of human society (great for all its flaws, which lie in
the execution, not the ideals) will have come to an end. We will be the
"Land of the enslaved, home of the scared."

***********************************

....I don't completely agree with everything Keith says here, but I surely love the man's passion... as he demonstrates in everything he takes an interest in or speaks about. And
further, as someone who has experienced unwarranted governmental
suspicion/surveillance elsewhere -- albeit by his admission short term
and low level -- his views deserve close attention. THANKS again for taking the time to respond Dr. Devlin.

I'll close out (...for some comic relief) with this "Good Will Hunting" scene that I've already used over at Math-Frolic, and most of you have likely seen:

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About Me:

I'm a number-luvin' primate; hope you are too! ..."Shecky Riemann" is the fanciful pseudonym of a former psychology major and lab-tech (clinical genetics), now cheerleading for mathematics! A product of the 60's he remains proud of his first Presidential vote for George McGovern ;-) ...Cats, cockatoos, and shetland sheepdogs revere him.
Li'l more bio here.